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Less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, the state’s residents barely had a chance to catch their breath before Hurricane Milton roared through the state late Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
At least five people had been confirmed dead by Florida officials and more than three million were left without power, while rescue crews went to work Thursday pulling out people who had been stranded in flooded buildings and cars.
Milton made landfall near Sarasota as a Category 3 hurricane and maintained hurricane strength as it crossed the Florida peninsula. The storm spurred a series of tornado outbreaks on the opposite side of the state from where it made landfall, generating a shocking 150 tornadoes. By Thursday morning, the center of the storm had reached the Atlantic Ocean, but cities like Orlando and Daytona Beach were still dealing with heavy rain and wind.
“This was not the worst-case scenario,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said, as the heavily populated Tampa Bay area seemed to miss what could have been severe storm surge. Barrier islands along the Gulf Coast saw heavy flooding, however, and Sarasota experienced significant damage to buildings and trees, while yachts had been thrown ashore along the waterfront.
Agents across Florida seemed a bit shaken on Thursday but showed resiliency in the storm’s wake.
Kara Heaslip from John R. Wood Properties Christie’s International Real Estate in Naples told Inman — as her cell service repeatedly cut in and out — that she had spent much of Wednesday morning helping clients prepare their properties for the storm, and that the area, fortunately, had not been hit as badly as some other parts of the state.
“Yesterday morning I was out and about securing clients’ places with patio furniture, closing up hurricane shutters, basically going around and being a concierge Realtor, which is what we all do,” Heaslip said.
Florida Realtor Phillip Rigsby with Premier Sotheby’s International Realty also posted on Instagram a photo of his own preparations on Wednesday, closing up hurricane shutters while donning some very practical rubber boots.
Heaslip added that two major hurricanes within two weeks of each other were “unprecedented” and a bit dispiriting after feeling like recovery efforts from Hurricane Ian in 2022 had only recently been completed (and in reality were ongoing for some). “Everybody had basically gotten back to normal, for heaven’s sake, and now we get hit again.”
Alexia Rodriguez, CEO of KW Cares, Keller Williams’ nonprofit arm that supports KW associates and their families during crises, said that the organization’s phone tree in Florida had been activated on Thursday as the firm’s associates checked in on each other to be sure everyone was out of harm’s way.
The charity had more than 400 generators that would be delivered to the state later this week and had also teamed up with their partner, volunteer first-responder organization Texas Search and Rescue, to set up a station in Tampa ahead of the storm. The team was ready on Thursday to deploy in case they received word that any KW associates needed to be rescued.
KW Cares Trucks that will transport relief supplies to Florida | Courtesy of KW Cares
“They have a list of all our agents and they will be out looking for anybody if we need their help,” Rodriguez said. “If we don’t need their help, they’re going to help the community at large.”
Rodriguez said phone lines were also open at KW Cares for any associate in need of the organization’s emergency grants, which provide up to $5,000 for those in affected areas who might need assistance because they’ve lost power and all their food has gone bad or whose homes have been destroyed by storm damage. Rodriguez said KW Cares had received one call today from an agent whose home had been taken out by one of the several tornadoes that had swept the state.
Kendall Bonner of the Kendall Bonner Team at eXp Realty reported from Austin that her neighborhood in Tampa had sustained damage, but it could have been worse, sharing photos of a pergola that had been destroyed by high winds and a flooded back yard.
A destroyed pergola in Tampa | Courtesy of Kendall Bonner
Storm surge was a big fear on the minds of Heaslip’s clients, she said, and they felt fortunate that it was largely beachfront and lower elevation properties that experienced flooding. The surge in this case was not as high as it was during Ian, she added, but even a small amount of flooding in a home can cause significant damage and can be a challenge to clean up.
“On a positive note, we did not have much damage from the wind and that is a blessing in itself as well,” Heaslip said. “Our community is resilient and our experiences with storms help us in coordinating repairs with experienced contractors, as well as Collier County and City of Naples workers.”
Awareness about Milton’s potential severity and scope of destruction spurred many to take preparations for the storm seriously, with cars lining Florida highways in bumper-to-bumper traffic as residents sought to evacuate earlier in the week. Many others sought refuge in shelters that had been set up across the state.
Florida Realtors published an article on their website on Tuesday with information about a variety of resources available, as well as a printable hurricane preparation and recovery plan that agents could share with clients.
Recovery strained by ongoing efforts to areas impacted by Helene
The storm hit at a time when some Floridians were still dealing with cleaning up after Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in the state on Sept. 26 and proceeded north through several states on the East Coast, bringing catastrophic flooding to communities in the western part of North Carolina.
As the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) dealt with the massive damage to come out of Helene, only about 9 percent of the agency’s personnel were available to respond to Milton recovery efforts as of Monday, The New York Times reported.
Still, the agency’s deputy associate administrator for response and recovery, Leiloni Stainsby, asserted that “FEMA is built for this” on Monday.
As of Wednesday, FEMA assistance for those impacted by Helene had surpassed $344 million and had reached 375,000 households, the agency said in a press release.
Rodriguez said that KW Cares was still actively helping with recovery from Helene, now attempting to address concerns with impending freezing temperatures that would hit North Carolina soon by sending generators and portable heaters to the region.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing on Thursday that the Biden administration had deployed 1,000 search and rescue personnel to Florida, in addition to coast guard teams. Other emergency personnel would be delivering 20 million meals and 40 million liters of water to the state as well.
At a press briefing on Thursday, Gov. DeSantis said that FEMA and the White House were being helpful in expediting aid to the state. “I spoke with the president this morning, and [Emergency Management Director] Kevin [Guthrie] was on the phone with me, and the administrator of FEMA was in the office with us in Tallahassee at the Emergency Operations Center,” Gov. DeSantis said. “He said he wants to be helpful, and if we have requests, he said send them his way, and he wants to help us get the job done.”
He added that “being able to collaborate across the federal, state and local governments and work together to put the people first,” was appreciated.
Email Lillian Dickerson
